Is Remembering a Sign?

Nine children bred from my grandmother, I lost my entire family to cancer and serious health-related issues. All but two— my mother and my Aunt Susie. I guess I should be more thankful. It seems God tried to fill up the holes he created, with new bodies he’d put in their place, mentors, leaders, and family friends. Still. I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have them all here again, at the same time.

Would they all fill the crowd and cheer for me at my graduation? The first in this legacy of mine to receive a college degree. Would they be sitting front row at all of my beauty pageants and speaking engagements?

Pat me on the back, or take on the critical mindset of Uncle Wally or Uncle Steve and inform me of a grammatical error I stated in the 5th stanza of my poem.

I wonder, am I them? Or are they wrapped in me?

In the way, I carry myself, the way I show up, the way I imagine, and the way I create..

Do they see themselves in me, looking down from wherever they are spread across the stars?

I’d seen a cardinal in the garage that day, November, 8th 2021. That day in which maybe an inkling of hope sparked in my chest, gave me the imagination or faith that he hears and sees me too.

My Uncle Ralph.

When Uncle Ralph passed, I designated his soul to a red cardinal. I'm not sure what day it was, but after his passing I'd always see an abundance of red cardinals flying around Aunt Susie's house, in the backyard, on the roof, in the front of our sandy tan ranch-style home, hiding in the tree I crashed his fire red 4-wheeler into.

How adventurous he was to bring a 4-wheeler to the place he'd soon take his last breath.

He was so free and completely unafraid, always soaring into the next experience, gadget, device, and even pet that fueled him.

The Red Cardinal.

I hadn't seen one this close to me since 2008, here we are in 2021 and one flies right overhead into the garage, maybe stuck in the garage for a good 15-20 minutes. I was so concerned about making sure it wouldn’t get stuck in there and die. Whirling thoughts in my head and saying to myself "Eventually I'm going to have to close the garage and then he’ll suffocate or die of hunger." "I'll come back outside and he'll be laying on the cool concrete, lifeless." I never was quite skilled at stopping my mind from going to those dark anxiety riddled places. I was so worried about the Cardinal's life, I didn’t even acknowledge the moment in my lifetime in which I was granted the opportunity to be so very close to one.

Swooping and diving over my head, so close I could reach up and feel the smoothness of its hind feather on the tip of my finger.

I was wildly in close proximity to a bird I once called my Uncle Ralph.

My memory of the Cardinal in 2008 does not fit the image I see when looking at them now. Maybe, then as a pre-teen hearing and seeing my uncle take his last breath; grief, feelings of vast emptiness, and loss are all I could feel when seeing them. Being delighted at seeing a speck of red in the trees but at the same time, angry, upset, and feeling it to be unfair that he was maybe flying around in a new life as a bird or a light I couldn't see or touch.

I don't remember them being this beautiful, delicate, soft— with a sort of slow ticking chirp, not quick, annoying, or as repetitive as the other birds I hear outside my window in the morning. How beautiful was this Cardinal..plunging, flapping, and flying over my head… Was it him? Talking to me? Giving me a sign? Telling me it will all be alright? Telling me to continue to embrace the adventure — the epitome of my Uncle Ralph. Was he telling me to keep going even when I'm ill, don’t feel well, and don't understand what's happening in my life, to keep embracing these moments..to keep going?

Was he telling me to keep going?

Sometimes all I can remember is his frail body being carried out of the hallway with a white sheet blanketed over his pale, translucent flesh. His hand peeked from the sheet and hung over the arm of the monotonous paramedic. I think of how sad I am to still have that memory. I wonder do other children have memories as pungent, fresh, and tearing as mine. At 12, did they think of what it felt like to die? Or how to overcome the empty feeling of loss. Were they too, trying to erase the images and smell of death, the aroma that snuck into their mouth as they exhaled their cry? Was it just me? — that remembered a family member as how they were on their exit and not during their existence?

Do you think that remembering is a sign? our ancestors, or transitioned loved ones' ways of expression, Is it their way to conjure gratitude, to get us all to connect the dots?

A way to create purpose or instill meaning behind trials, tribulations.. and current life happenings…

to get us to remember, no matter how happy or sad, to get us to connect feeling and emotion to all that breathes, moves, and shifts around us.

Is it their way of creating images in our heads to tell our life stories?

To create a book, a memoir to be told, to be felt, heard, and understood….

so that we may know... everything is everything. and whatever we feel when we look around what surrounds us in this world, all means something.

Is remembering a sign?